China is right side out, unswallowed. She brought Shane. I know this because she comes right up to my face and yells as if I can’t hear her through my human screen. She says, “THIS IS SHANE!”
But I’m a television with no remote control and I can’t say anything or do anything except think on the inside. I can think on the inside. I think, I am eighty-nine cents’ worth of chemicals walking around lonely.
Lansdale is pacing. Her hair is shorter and it maintains its structure when she talks to China or Shane. Mama and Pop have gone home. They didn’t leave a note for me because they know the nurses will feed me and turn out the lights.
I don’t have any homework, but I wish I did.
I wish I had a worm to dissect. Or a bird. Or a frog. Maybe if I had something to do with my hands, I would do it. I’ve tried reaching for my guilt gland a hundred times since we landed, but I can’t move my arm.
I can only blink.
I think I’m drooling.
China looks worried.
She holds a poem up to my face, and I see it as a block of text, but can’t read it because my eyes can’t move.
The doctors asked Mama and Pop if they knew what was bothering me. I watched as Mama put her hand on Pop’s lap and told them about the years of therapy. The PTSD. My nightmares. My obsession with biology.
Obsession. They called it an obsession.
The doctor asked if we were in family therapy. Mama and Pop said, “We’re fine.” I’m inside this television, looking out. Even I could tell the doctor didn’t believe them. And if she had half an olfactory system, she’d have smelled the gin two doors away.
Another doctor comes in and asks China, Shane, and Lansdale to leave.
He sits on my bedside and says this:
“____________, you’re a one hundred percent healthy girl with a bright future. I understand you had something traumatic happen to you when you were eight years old, and I’d like to talk about it.”
I’m inside the television looking out. He’s a funny man, this doctor. He looks like Sidney, the psychiatrist from M*A*S*H. I’m Hawkeye Pierce. It’s the final episode of M*A*S*H and I know it by heart. We’re fighting over what happened in the back of the bus. Sidney knows I’m lying when I tell him that the lady in the back of the bus smothered a chicken. He knows she smothered her own baby. He knows I’m damaged. He knows I will never be the same again. He knows I’m split in two, no DNA test needed, no need for tetragametic chimeras, no need for biology.
All I need is my lab coat. I have two more of them. They’re in my bedroom closet.